Halkett boat
A Halkett boat is a type of lightweight
Halkett's first design was a collapsible and inflatable boat made of rubber-impregnated cloth. When deflated, the hull of the boat could be worn as a cloak, the oar used as a walking stick, and the sail as an umbrella. This was followed by a two-man craft that was small enough to fit into a
Although widely praised by Canadian explorers, Halkett's designs had a limited market, and he was unable to persuade the
Peter Halkett
Peter Halkett was a
Franklin's three-year exploration of the northern coast of Canada in search of the Northwest Passage had ended in disaster amid accusations of murder and cannibalism, with 11 of the 20 members of the group killed and the survivors reduced to eating lichen, their own boots, and the remains of rotten carcasses abandoned by wolves.[3] The party had become stranded on the wrong side of the Coppermine River after their boats had been destroyed in a storm; John Richardson had attempted to swim to safety and suffered severe hypothermia.[4] A single member of the party had fashioned a small canoe from canvas and willow, and the survivors had been obliged to cross the river one at a time using the makeshift canoe.[5]
Halkett was an amateur inventor, and during his spare time whilst serving in the navy he worked on solving the problem of how to design a boat that would be small and light enough to transport easily on foot through wilderness, but robust enough to carry people in safety across wide bodies of water.[2] His solution was to design a boat in which all components would double as items of clothing, or accessories that Halkett assumed the user would be carrying in any event.[2]
Boat-cloak
Halkett designed a waterproof
In early 1844, Halkett successfully tested a prototype boat-cloak on the River Thames, paddling it 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) without taking on any water,[2] despite, in his words, being "met by—passed by—and almost run down by—various Metropolitan Steamers plying to and fro in their several vocations, and causing no little commotion in the troubled waters of the River".[10] Buoyed by this success, he took the prototype boat-cloak with him while on naval service, using it whenever the opportunity arose to test it under various sea conditions.[11] In November 1844, Halkett hoped to test the boat-cloak in bad weather conditions, in the rough seas of the Bay of Biscay, but the weather was unusually calm. He was forced to take down his umbrella, and paddle, recalling later that "the winds that day were too civil by half, and the sleepless bay almost quite dormant".[11][note 1] The boat-cloak was positively received by explorers; John Richardson (who had almost died during the 1819–1822 Coppermine expedition) wrote that "Had we been possessed of such a contrivance in our first expedition, I have little doubt of our having brought the whole party in safely".[11]
Halkett's boats in the Canadian Arctic
Spurred on by the successful testing of the boat-cloak, Halkett designed a larger version that folded into a knapsack. When inflated, it could carry two men, operating a paddle on each side, and when deflated served as a waterproof blanket to allow the users to camp on wet ground.
Although the Admiralty saw no use to which Halkett's designs could be put in general naval service, this larger design was extremely well received by explorers. John Franklin bought one to take on the ill-fated
Keen to find out what had become of the ships and men of Franklin's expedition, in 1848 the Royal Navy sent a search party led by
In 1851 French explorer Joseph René Bellot mounted another expedition to find Franklin, sponsored by Franklin's wife. Bellot took a Halkett boat-cloak on the journey, noting in his journal that it was "of immense value in a country where the want of wood renders it impossible to form any sort of raft".[11] Bellot's expedition was unable to locate Franklin, and it was not until 1853 that an expedition led by Rae (equipped with "two beautiful Halkett boats") located a group of Inuit who recounted seeing men dragging a boat four years earlier, and later finding their bodies.[11]
Commercial failure
Despite being promoted as ideal for lake-fishing and duck-shooting,
References
Notes
References
- ^ a b c "Boat-cloak or cloak-boat". Greenwich: National Maritime Museum. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
- ^ ISSN 0262-4079.
- ISBN 1-86207-502-6.
- ISBN 1-86207-502-6.
- ISBN 1-86207-502-6.
- ^ a b c Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851. Vol. 2. London: Spicer Brothers. 1851. p. 783.
- ^ Dickens, Charles (July 1850). "Social, Sanitary and Municipal Progress". The Household Narrative of Current Events. London: Household Words: 162.
- ^ "A boat, a cloak, an umbrella and a walking stick". Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle. 1851-12-20. Retrieved 15 May 2010.
- ^ "Monthly Record of Current Events". Harper's Magazine. 1 (4): 567. September 1850.
- ^ a b "Footnotes to the Franklin Search" (PDF). The Beaver. 34 (4). Hudson's Bay Company: 47. 1955. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-04-25.
- ^ ISSN 0262-4079.
- ^ a b c "Footnotes to the Franklin Search". The Beaver. 34 (4). Hudson's Bay Company: 48. 1955.
- ISBN 978-0-88864-472-5.
- ^ "Footnotes to the Franklin Search" (PDF). The Beaver. 34 (4). Hudson's Bay Company: 46. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-04-25.
- ^ Abstracts of Canadian Association for the Conservation of Cultural Property 27th Annual Congress Halifax 2001 Archived 2011-07-06 at the Wayback Machine p.24